With his company posting double-digit growth for the past seven years, Water Pik CEO Richard Bisson said he anticipates slightly less growth this year. / Coloradoan library

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Woodward Inc. CEO and Chairman Tom Gendron, right, and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper look over the grounds of what will become a new Woodward facility at the old Link-N-Green golf course in Fort Collins on May 15. / Coloradoan library

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Top guns at three of Fort Collins’ largest employers expect continued growth for their companies and Northern Colorado this year but say threats could lie ahead in finding qualified workers and quelling both downtown parking woes and issues facing the broader economy.

The leaders at Woodward, Water Pik and OtterBox sat down individually with the Coloradoan to talk about their company’s projected growth, the Northern Colorado economy and future challenges.

The three manufacturers employ thousands of workers throughout Northern Colorado and play in vastly different global markets — Woodward in energy and aerospace; Water Pik in personal and oral health care; and OtterBox in smartphone and tablet protection.

Each is affected differently by economic forces but all are bullish on the Northern Colorado economy and forging ahead with their own growth plans.

Betting on growth

OtterBox founder Curt Richardson laughs when he says growth will taper off next year, a slowdown from the explosive expansion the company has seen in the past few years as demand for smartphones and tablets soared. For most companies, 15 percent to 20 percent growth would be cause for celebration, but OtterBox judges itself by different standards.

“It’s not a doubling effect like we have had, which is in many ways a good thing,” Richardson said. Still, the company plans to roll out several new lines of protective cases for gadgets early this year. “We still expect to see growth, and some of our growth could come through new acquisitions as well as new products and product development.”

OtterBox captures about 50 percent of the U.S. market for protective cases for smartphones and tablets, but demand for smartphones is slowing, Richardson said. “It’s not the market that it was two or three years ago. It’s not, ‘wow, what’s the next thing — I have to have that new phone.’ People aren’t acting that way anymore.”

Still, manufacturers keep producing new communication devices. A new Samsung watch phone and Apple’s latest phone with fingerprint reader have failed to impress Richardson. And the trend toward smaller phones is reversing.

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“Phones did get tiny, now they’re coming back to a more optimum size,” he said. “Go to Asia and you’ll see tons of people walking with basically a tablet against their head. So I think some of the preconceived things with size have panned out to not be true.”

That means breakthroughs will come in screens, software, increased storage and battery life, he said. “That’s what will set devices apart and why people will upgrade.” he said.

With its rapid growth, OtterBox and its real estate arm, Blue Ocean, have purchased and are building new structures, mostly in downtown Fort Collins.

“People ask me why I invest in Old Town and I say, ‘Because there is no more Old Town,’ ” Richardson said. “Old Town is a gem within Fort Collins and a worthy investment, not just from an investment standpoint, but really an investment in our community.”

OtterBox likely has enough space to accommodate its needs, particularly with a six-story building it’s constructing next to the Lincoln Center. But Richardson said he hears from other companies that want to move to Old Town that there really is no more space.

“You will see Blue Ocean create more of that space in the future,” he said. The space could accommodate other businesses and startups participating in the Blue Ocean Challenge, a $250,000 business pitch competition presented by OtterBox and the Colorado State University College of Business.

On a local level, OtterBox and Old Town face challenges created by a lack of parking, Richardson said. “The city’s gotta figure out this parking ... another study is not going to solve the problem. I’m tired of studies and I’m sure the neighbors are, too.”

OtterBox is building its own parking garage to help ease the shortage and hopes the city will do the same.

“We will see what kind of challenges bringing another 2,000 people to the other side of Old Town will mean for Old Town,” Richardson said, referring to the expansion of Woodward’s global headquarters and manufacturing facility on the fringes of Old Town.

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“The city has got to get ahead of this curve and quit thinking about it and talking about it and do something.”

Dipping its toe into new product lines

With his company posting double-digit growth for the past seven years, Water Pik CEO Richard Bisson said he anticipates slightly less growth this year.

Water Pik, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in Fort Collins in 2012, is pretty much a household name in replacement shower heads, water flossers and now, Bisson hopes, faucets.

The new product line, he said, “is about us taking the Water Pik brand and expanding it in the bathroom. We know how to move water and design faucets, and that’s a natural area to expand in. There’s quite a bit of competition in that arena, but we are going to give it a shot in 2014.”

Water Pik, a privately held company, was purchased in July by a private equity group that includes Vulcan Capital, the investment arm of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc.

While Allen’s name brings a certain cache to the company, it gives Water Pik the resources for future acquisitions, Bisson told the Coloradoan in July.

“There’s no doubt I would like to take Water Pik and have it be a larger consumer product platform,” Bisson said when the purchase was announced.

Water Pik’s two core product categories — water flossers and replacement shower heads — “are doing fairly well,” he said. “We are getting a little bit of tailwind from the DIY activity and economy.”

Headwinds are coming from the indecision of government and the continued economic plight of consumers still reeling from the recession.

“The consumer tends to freeze and tends to keep their wallet in their pocket longer with more indecision from the government,” Bisson said. “That’s been one of our issues. Another just depends on how much debt people have.”

Water Pik already owns about 33 percent of the replacement shower head market in North America, Bisson said. “We are looking at new ways to grow organically to increase business and we looked at faucets.”

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Northern Colorado remains a strong economic region because of its highly educated workforce and a housing market that never went out of whack like many other areas of the country.

“When you look around the country, (Fort Collins) has reasonably priced homes, excellent public schools and a government that stays out of your way and asks ‘how can we help,’ ” Bisson said. “Those are some of the reasons companies are moving here ... you see a lot of entrepreneurial firms coming here all because this is just a great place to play as well as work.”

Forging a new future

Woodward, the company that could potentially have the greatest short- and long-term impact on Old Town, expects modest growth with revenue projected to reach $1.95 billion this year, according to recent forecasts.

The company is investing about $250 million in equipment and its new Fort Collins headquarters that should be fully under construction this year and up and running in 2015.

Its growth will come in two areas: commercial aerospace — the jetliners that most people fly on — and natural gas activity, Chairman and CEO Tom Gendron said.

But the company is keeping a close eye on global economic activity and concerns about China, India and other parts of Southeast Asia.

“They’re recovering and growing some, but we still think they’re fragile,” Gendron said. “Those countries are major growth drivers in our industry, so if we see a softening there, that could be a threat.”

While its growth trajectory this year looks good, Gendron said Woodward has to continue to have an available workforce. “The concern we always have in this region is gaps in manufacturing skill-sets.”

Woodward helped create and support a program at Front Range Community College in clean technology that works to create technicians who have the skills “for the 21st-century manufacturing and support of higher level jobs,” he said.

Going forward, manufacturers will need highly skilled workers to fill highly skilled jobs. “We still have a lot of work to do to support those jobs,” Gendron said. “They pay well above average wages in the region, so it’s good for our community to make sure we have labor to support that.”

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Woodward’s greatest impact could be the influence it has on the Lincoln triangle, where the company will make its new home. City officials have long called Woodward a catalyst project that will spur redevelopment along Mulberry Street, within the Poudre River District and along Lincoln Avenue itself.

“There is great opportunity there,” Gendron said. “I would love to see some of that property reserved for high-paying primary employment jobs. Done right that could become the true gateway into Fort Collins ... over the next 20 years it could be a fabulous area, and we hope we will do our little part to stimulate more development there.”

Several businesses have sat on the sidelines waiting to see what Woodward does. OtterBox’s Richardson can hardly contain his excitement.

“I get really excited when I talk about Woodward going on the other side of Old Town, Otter on this side” and Pat Stryker’s Bohemian Cos. in the middle. “It’s a great combination of really those three big entities right here in Old Town,” he said. “It will have a lot of impact. Old Town will grow and spread out a little bit, which I think is a good thing.”